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How to Handle an Unexpected Pregnancy

When you first find out you’re about to become a new mom, pregnancy can be pretty scary. In this post, I’ll share some tips to hep you handle unexpected pregnancy without panicking.

How are you handling your unexpected pregnancy?

For many, finding out you’re expecting comes with happiness, joy, excitement, and celebration. Personally, I am yet to experience these feelings. I recently found out I’m expecting baby #3 and while I’m happy, I’m really terrified because we aren’t in the perfect place or really ready for another. Mister K is my oldest and lives with his dad so we currently just have a very needy toddler in the house. This next transition is going to be rough.

With Miss M, it took me literally 4-5 months to start to get excited that she was coming. Everyone around me was excited and congratulated me and inside I was terrified beyond belief. I have never felt I was the mom Mister K deserved so I felt I couldn’t be that for Miss M, either. That turned out to be the farthest from the truth, but it was rough.

There are a few things I’ve learned about how to handle an unexpected pregnancy at this point, though. I want to share these tips with you so hopefully, it can be an easier process for you.

Tips for handling your unexpected pregnancy

Seek out support from others

For someone like me who is not one to take an unexpected pregnancy well at first … support is a must. Talk to your mom, your sister, your husband, your cousin, your best friend, your coworker, whoever you have a close relationship that can be there for you through this. I’ve also found that facebook groups can come in handy, too. They’re unbiased supportive people that are truly amazing.

Try your best to stay calm

From my own personal experience, I know how freaking hard it is to actually do this. If ANYONE looks at me to say “Deep breaths. Calm down.” or anything to that nature … I’m liable to want to stick a fork in their eye (not really though, of course). But – it is important to not freak out. Not only is it not good on you, it’s not good for your growing baby either. When you start freaking out and panicking, your adrenaline starts rushing, your heart rate goes up, along with many other physical symptoms. I’m sure you can see how this is really not good for your body.

So what should you do?

Instead of freaking out, think about what your next steps will be. You’ve started to think about your game plan and seek out support, now it’s time to get to the important stuff. You know – taking a prenatal, getting stress under control, and sorting out your diet with the best food for you and your baby. I’ll explain a little more below – don’t worry!

Make a game plan

Originally, this was the first thing that I thought of to include. But then I realized most normal people that are not me – will not want to do this until later. I’m known to make my partner anxious because the first thing I do is try and make a 9-month game plan in 5 minutes. I start to ramble off everything at lightning speed to try and avoid freaking out.

But instead of me calming down … we are now both worrying.

Now. You want to make a game plan. But make ONE single big goal (move into a bigger house, save up money before maternity leave, etc) and then make a game plan for the next month. Are you going to find a midwife? Will you make diet changes? Will you start shopping at thrift stores for clothing? Know what you’re going to do in the next coming days. Then when that month is over, make more plans for the next month, and the next one.

You got this mama, I promise. <3

Next steps for your unexpected pregnancy

Find a great prenatal vitamin

The absolute first thing to do is find a prenatal vitamin for you and your growing baby. I urge you not to rush to the nearest Walmart and pick up the first thing you see. Instead, find the perfect blend of vitamins and ingredients that are exactly what your body needs. The most important thing though is to choose something that includes folate and not folic acid. The reason being folic acid is synthetic, while folate is not.

Get your diet in order

The next order of business is to make some diet changes. You have a human growing in there now and you need to keep you and them healthy! This means cutting out alcohol, caffeine, nicotine if you smoke, lunch meat, large amounts of fish, among other things. Then adding in things high in nutrients as well as making sure you drink A LOT of water.

With Mister K, I ended up hospitalized and hooked up to an IV several times because I wasn’t drinking enough of water. It was causing my body to try and go into preterm labor. I cannot begin to stress how important water intake is! You want to take half your current weight and divide that number in half. That’s the number of ounces you need to be drinking on a daily basis.

As an example … If you’re a woman that is 180 pounds, you’ll drink 90 ounces of water a day because 90 is half of 180.

Feel free to leave a comment if you need some help figuring out your next steps in terms of diet!

Keep your stress under control

Lastly but not least … keep that stress level at bay, mama. Your stress level can cause harm to your baby. Of course, you will have normal everyday stress, but try to keep it under control. Don’t freak out on anybody if you can help it, leave the room to just breathe if you need to. Try to avoid anything that could be harmful to the baby.

Stress can cause issues, including miscarriage. While the changes are low, they still exist. It is very important to take proactive measure to keep that stress level low!

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I’m Amber - a Seattle-native girl who now lives in a small town in Utah (and pretty unsure how that happened ha!). I’m a writer, designer, baker, and a passionate advocate of many things. But most importantly - a mother to two precious little ones with another due in June. :) I believe in celebrating motherhood everyday - it really is the little things that count. <3